Owner of Gazelle bikes buys Cannondale, Schwinn for $810 million

JonF

Well-Known Member
I fell ass-backwards into a Ripmo before the hammer dropped, best bike I've ever ridden.
I loved my Ripley. I begrudgingly sold it to go to a 2 bike setup (XC + enduro) but i'm itching to get back into an Ibis. If shit were normal and i had my way, i'd have a Ripmo and an Exie.
 

Captain Brainstorm

Well-Known Member
I'm currently on a Ripmo and about to demo a Switchblade Sunday. Super curious to see how they compare.
I demoed it against the Switchblade on the same trails. The Switchblade is a prettier bike (I really wanted to find a reason to get it), but the Ripmo went downhill faster and with more control, yet gave nothing up on the climbs. The suspension on the Ripmo was just more active. Maybe the Switchblade was a tiny bit more maneuverable it tight places? I also saved $1.5K on the Ripmo over the Switchblade, but the deciding factor was performance, not price.

I also demoed the SB130 Lunchride. It was a good bike, but not as good as the Ripmo/Switchblade. It felt like a bigger bike, although the travel was less, and the suspension had a harsh edge to it no matter how I adjusted the sag.
 

soundz

The Hat
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I have an old 60s Gazelle. Is it the same company? Looks something like this.

1965_Gazelle_05.jpg
 

Ian F

Well-Known Member
Proprietary parts have been in the bike industry for ages. Being the owner of a Yeti Lawwill DH-6 with the Rock Shox pull-shock, I know that all too well. But fun fact: the main pivot bushings on that frame are also unique to that model.
 
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Santapez

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I am specifically talking network appliances because they've been stable for years (not talking big datacenters, more like a 200-400 clients) and yet perfectly functioning Gigabit switches are to be trashed because obsolescence due to obscure protocol enhancements or simply no longer being supported while 99% of the users are still on IPV4. Have you counted how many different fiber standards are out there? I'm jus been told that due to some CheckPoint protocol update I have to up the specs of a perfectly working virtual machine from 6 to 16 cores, 200GB to 600GB and 8GB to 32GB...being a virtual machine and since we just installed a new cluster that is not going to be a problem (well, because it's not a Windows machine and it doesn't run Oracle, or it would have been a bloodbath to update the licenses alone).

Have you ever tried to buy a decent 1 1/8 straight tube fork? Doesn't need to be a predictable non-catastrophic failure, just stop making the component or its parts.
Leasing networking equipment is just a way for companies to get a service at a fixed rate. Networking equipment can be viewed as a service because it's not really an asset, it's something that requires maintenance costs and then becomes worthless in a relatively short time frame.

It's farming out all the PITA factor of purchasing, maintaining and disposing of all that equipment.

The way this is more relevant to bikes is if it's a whole package. Lease the bike and you get all your tires, shop work, etc included. Heck if you bought a 2014 bike on a 4 year lease like that it may have worked out since who wants a 2014 bike in 2021?

I know I just asked that question to the wrong person, but in general...
 

Cassinonorth

Well-Known Member
Leasing networking equipment is just a way for companies to get a service at a fixed rate. Networking equipment can be viewed as a service because it's not really an asset, it's something that requires maintenance costs and then becomes worthless in a relatively short time frame.

It's farming out all the PITA factor of purchasing, maintaining and disposing of all that equipment.

The way this is more relevant to bikes is if it's a whole package. Lease the bike and you get all your tires, shop work, etc included. Heck if you bought a 2014 bike on a 4 year lease like that it may have worked out since who wants a 2014 bike in 2021?

I know I just asked that question to the wrong person, but in general...

Trying to figure out the lease price of a 4 year bike term....I'd think it would be basically retail for that bike. $4,000 bike-$83/month including an annual tune up (so the store can make sure it isn't going to absolute shit when they take it back in).

I can't imagine they'd do a one size fits all package for tires and shop work but I guess car dealers do similar when they need to move cars.
 

serviceguy

Well-Known Member
Leasing networking equipment is just a way for companies to get a service at a fixed rate. Networking equipment can be viewed as a service because it's not really an asset, it's something that requires maintenance costs and then becomes worthless in a relatively short time frame.

It's farming out all the PITA factor of purchasing, maintaining and disposing of all that equipment.

The way this is more relevant to bikes is if it's a whole package. Lease the bike and you get all your tires, shop work, etc included. Heck if you bought a 2014 bike on a 4 year lease like that it may have worked out since who wants a 2014 bike in 2021?

I know I just asked that question to the wrong person, but in general...
In a way your example works to prove my point...the 2014 bike provides a more than sufficient service for the 99% of people riding a mountain bike, and yet is artificially made obsolete to promote the sale of more bikes as soon as 2017. The 2014 is still working in 2021 and there's no issue performing maintenance on it (as long as you can get parts that is) because the basic standard of the industry have not changed (BSA BB, headset etc,) ...and that is where the subscription model would have to step in, making sure that as of 2021 you won't be able to ride your 2014 bike under any circumstance. That is what happens with network appliances, and has for a while.
 

Santapez

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Trying to figure out the lease price of a 4 year bike term....I'd think it would be basically retail for that bike. $4,000 bike-$83/month including an annual tune up (so the store can make sure it isn't going to absolute shit when they take it back in).

I can't imagine they'd do a one size fits all package for tires and shop work but I guess car dealers do similar when they need to move cars.
I didn't say it financially makes sense for the person leasing the bike. It makes sense for the company leasing the bike out.

But people like leasing BMWs and Audis and paying that monthly bill their entire life, so obviously people are OK with that.
 

Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
sure, and you could use a 10yo computer too. It sucks, but it works.
Why? Exponential gains.

how about this - a network switch is one of the most critical components in an organization
failure rates go up as they age, as well as, not being able to handle some critical traffic or some new functionality -
just about everything can be tunnelled, so why not just use old switches and virtualize everything? because that is dum. ;)

Next - nobody was ever fired because a brand new switch failed after a month and the service people were there that afternoon because of the SLA.
(hot and cold spares might be a good idea too - depending on how critical any one piece is)

compare this to the manager who said our old switches will do, i can support them. And they STB in some cascading, meltdown fashion.
Debugging and recover efforts might take an extended amount of time. I wouldn't want to be standing there.

It isn't about the cost of the new switches, or the perceived obsolescence of the old ones.
It is the cost of keeping the business up and running, and supporting any approved edge case,
and being prepared for next year. People don't do well when the technical infrastructure is down,
even tho they get paid to think, most can't get anything done.

couple other adages:
- When making a big decision, hire a consulting company to tell you what you already know.
- Nobody was ever fired for hiring IBM.
 
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serviceguy

Well-Known Member
I didn't say it financially makes sense for the person leasing the bike. It makes sense for the company leasing the bike out.

But people like leasing BMWs and Audis and paying that monthly bill their entire life, so obviously people are OK with that.
I understand that, and it's Ok until there is an alternative if you don't want to go along with that specific model.
 

Cassinonorth

Well-Known Member
I didn't say it financially makes sense for the person leasing the bike. It makes sense for the company leasing the bike out.

But people like leasing BMWs and Audis and paying that monthly bill their entire life, so obviously people are OK with that.

I was just spitballing on price. Not saying it's good/bad/indifferent. The guy doing a bike lease doesn't want to upgrade his bike or tinker with upgrades...he just wants it to work and to upgrade every few years (basically the same person doing a car lease).

I actually think it's a very intriguing idea for a high volume shop that have the capital to outset.
 

Santapez

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I was just spitballing on price. Not saying it's good/bad/indifferent. The guy doing a bike lease doesn't want to upgrade his bike or tinker with upgrades...he just wants it to work and to upgrade every few years (basically the same person doing a car lease).

I actually think it's a very intriguing idea for a high volume shop that have the capital to outset.
I'm willing to bet there's plenty of people that would be happy to return their S-Works whatever at the end of the lease and grab the newest version at that time on a new lease. Especially on the road side. And the store now has a high-end bike that's maintained to sell while keeping that original customer.
 

serviceguy

Well-Known Member
sure, and you could use a 10yo computer too. It sucks, but it works.
Why? Exponential gains.

how about this - a network switch is one of the most critical components in an organization
failure rates go up as they age, as well as, not being able to handle some critical traffic or some new functionality -
just about everything can be tunnelled, so why not just use old switches and virtualize everything? because that is dum. ;)

Next - nobody was ever fired because a brand new switch failed after a month and the service people were there that afternoon because of the SLA.
(hot and cold spares might be a good idea too - depending on how critical any one piece is)

compare this to the manager who said our old switches will do, i can support them. And they STB in some cascading, meltdown fashion.
Debugging and recover efforts might take an extended amount of time. I wouldn't want to be standing there.

It isn't about the cost of the new switches, or the perceived obsolescence of the old ones.
It is the cost of keeping the business up and running, and supporting any approved edge case,
and being prepared for next year. People don't do well when the technical infrastructure is down,
even tho they get paid to think, most can't get anything done.

couple other adages:
- When making a big decision, hire a consulting company to tell you what you already know.
- Nobody was ever fired for hiring IBM.
I don't seem to be able and express myself correctly.

All your spiel makes sense if you omit the basic information that is the very same industry making their own product obsolete so they can push the next thing in spite of little to no real improvement (for the masses). Comparison to an old PC is both inaccurate and misleading, I recently resurrected my 13 years old pc with just an HD upgrade and it performs better than some 2 years old laptop we have at work (both in terms of performances and reliability) for what a PC does. Processing multiple rendering in 4K (if that is even a thing)...probably not so much, but how many of those you do on a daily (or monthly, or yearly) basis. Also, there has been some significant improvement in the performances of the HW that would justify updating to newer model (and there's a lot to say in the way SW is being developed but that would take too long).

How long have you been using Gigabit ports on the average office network? Forever. What determines if a switch can be repaired? Availability of parts? And who decides to push parts out of production even though viable from a performance standard point of view? The issue in my view is the fact that we are well into a monopoly oriented market rather than actual free market as it is proclaimed, kind of like Cuba had free elections with only one candidate on the ballot by his own decision...but I think we like that model now. If the 'industry' say jump you jump and post on social media how much you loved it (not before asking how high)!
 
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